


Be Kind, Rewind

by icewhisper



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Maes Hughes Lives, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, a lot of it, but it’s a time loop so it’s more like attempted?, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: Maes Hughes died on a Tuesday night. When Roy woke up the next day, it was Tuesday morning. Itkeptbeing Tuesday morning.
Relationships: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang
Comments: 39
Kudos: 314
Collections: Time Loop Hell (Feb 2020)





	Be Kind, Rewind

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize to everyone both for this and for the sudden influx of Time Loop AUs with “Maes keeps dying” plots that are getting posted today. This is all my fault.  
> Also, check the notes at the end for Xingese translations and some notes regarding the suicide tag.

Gracia called him before the official news made it to East City.

“He’s dead,” she sobbed, voice choked and crackling over the phone as he felt his knees go out from under him. “He’s dead, Roy.”

He should have gotten on the first train to Central, should have rushed down to be there for Gracia and to hold her and Elicia, because he was  _ supposed to _ . Years ago, crouched in a blown-out building in Ishval, Maes had reached for him and made him  _ promise _ that he’d be there for Gracia if anything ever happened to him. He’d made the promise again in the hospital when Maes put a newborn Elicia into his arms and asked him to be her godfather.

He was supposed to be there for them, but he couldn’t  _ breathe _ . Couldn’t see past the anger and the grief that forced him back onto trembling legs and took him to the alcohol he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.

He drank until he couldn’t see and wished he could drink until he didn’t feel.

**_1._ **

He woke up in his bed with no memory of how he'd gotten there and without a hangover. The clock by his bed said it was just past five and he  _ knew  _ he should be getting up. There was still packing to do and preparations that had to be made before his transfer to Central, but he couldn't bring himself to lift his head.

Couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that preparations for his transfer would be put on hold so they could make preparations for Maes' funeral.

It was his fault, wasn’t it? Maes had used his security code, but hadn't been on the other end when he answered.  _ Someone _ had hung it up, though, and he hadn't felt right about it, had told himself that it was fine, that Maes probably hung up because he wasn't somewhere secure. For all his eccentricities, Maes wouldn’t have told the dispatcher it was a matter of life and death if it wasn’t.

He should have followed up on it, but he’d told himself Maes would call back and had waited around in his office, working through the backlogs of paperwork he'd been avoiding until Gracia called.

_ "He's dead, Roy." _

He should cry, he thought. He should cry for his friend and pick himself up so he could help the family he'd left behind.

He didn't. 

He turned his face into his pillow and  _ screamed _ .

  
  


Riza showed up hours later, let herself in with the key she'd stolen years ago, and he heard her coming. Heard her boots coming closer until she took up the space of his doorway. 

And stopped.

The stern, almost irritated, look faded away to concern. "Sir?" She moved closer and reached out to touch his forehead with the backs of her fingers. "Are you alright?"

He let out a bitter laugh that sounded fragile, but he didn't tell her how outrageous that question was. The fact that she'd asked it at  _ all _ when she knew how much Maes meant to him. When she knew how close they were and how the fuck dare she act like he should be  _ okay  _ today, as if he-

"I was going to yell at you for missing work," she went on before he could snap at her. "I got stuck listening to Hughes for almost half an hour while he talked about Elicia's party and how upset he was that you hadn't been able to make it."

He stilled, breath caught in his throat. "Hughes?"

"As if you weren't going to hear from him first thing," she scoffed, but her smile was soft. She'd never been much for children, he remembered, but there was a kinship between her and Maes that Roy knew had at least half to do with them commiserating about what a pain in the ass  _ he _ was. "He was busy with the Elrics yesterday. He apparently never made it into the office."

That was a whole other question on it's own – because why the  _ hell  _ were the Elrics back in Central – but he lifted his head slowly and forced his body up the rest of the way right after. "He's okay?"

Riza frowned at him. "Yes," she said slowly. "Are  _ you _ ?"

It had to have been a dream, he thought. He'd had dreams that seemed too real before; all those dreams after Ishval and, then, dreams of the horror laid out across the Elrics’ basement floor and what could have been if Maes hadn’t caught him in his planning. That's all it was; a bad dream. He'd call Maes to verify, but it was  _ fine _ . Maes was fine, Gracia wasn't a widow, Elicia was going to get one of those bedtime stories Maes gloated about excelling at, and his best friend was  _ fine _ .

"Yeah," he muttered, embarrassed, as he ran a hand over his face. He grimaced at the stubble. "Guess I got too far in my own head."

She gave him that worried look she always got when his nightmares kept him up too many days. "Roy," she pushed and, for a second, they weren't commanding officer and adjunct; they were a couple of kids floating around her father's house while he buried himself in alchemy books.

He caught her hand before she could raise it to his cheek and shook his head. "I'm fine," he promised her. If Maes was okay, all was well. He’d had a bad dream. “Give me an hour and I’ll meet you at the office. I’ll even stay late to catch up on paperwork.”

Hours later, as he stared down at forms that he could have sworn he’d already signed, Gracia called in tears.

“He’s dead,” she sobbed and he dropped the receiver as Riza frowned at him. Even from where it lay on the desk, he could hear the harshness of Gracia’s cries. “He’s dead, Roy.”

**_2._ **

A dream within a dream, he told himself when he woke up in his own bed instead of curled up on the office’s couch with Riza wrapped around him like she had been. A nightmare within a nightmare. That was  _ it _ .

He still fell more than got out of bed in a desperate bid for his phone.

“Hughes residence,” Maes yawned into the phone and Roy felt every muscle in his body relax.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Roy said as he slid down to the floor. His heart was still hammering in his chest, hands trembling, but Maes’ voice was in his ear and it was  _ fine _ . “I just…” He trailed off, unsure how to explain it. “It’s not important.”

“It’s five in the morning, Roy,” Maes reminded him, only sounding slightly more awake now that he knew who had dragged him out of bed. “You’re not drunk, are you?”

“No,” he chuckled. “Just dreams. I’m fine. I’ll let you get back to bed.”

“I need to be getting up, anyway,” he admitted. “We’re seeing the Elrics off at the train station soon.”

The smile that had been starting on his face died. “The Elrics? They’re in Central?”

“Long story. I’ll update you when you get over here.”

“Hughes-”

“Don’t get the Colonel tone with me,” Maes chided and Roy really needed his friend to  _ not _ treat him like he was Maes’ damn kid. “I’ve got some stuff to look into, but I’ll update you when I know some more,  _ hǎo _ ?”

“ _ Hǎo, _ ” he agreed at a mumble, but the worry in him spiked. Maes had only ever learned a handful of Xingese from his grandmother as a kid, but over the years, they’d used little phrases. At first, it was joking, the two of them both bonding over a shared heritage for a country Roy had left after his parents died and that Maes only knew the bare minimum about. Once they got to Ishval, though, it had become and  _ stayed _ a code between them, a soft reminder that, no, they couldn’t talk here.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, he thought and felt the weight drop into his gut. He wanted to ask, but if it wasn’t safe to talk about, it wasn’t safe to talk about.

“I’ll be in Central by the end of the week,” he allowed reluctantly.

“Good. And when I see you, we can talk about getting you a wife.”

He hung up on him.

That night, Gracia called him and he forgot how to breathe all over again.

**_3._ **

He didn’t go to the office.

He didn’t answer his phone.

Riza showed up at his door with red eyes and he knew before she ever said anything.

**_4._ **

“Don’t go to the office today,” he told Maes when he called him first thing that morning.

“I need to,” Maes said, apologetic. “There’s some research I need to do.”

“It can  _ wait _ -”

“It really can’t, Roy. I promise, I’ll tell you about it later.”

He never did. His hand was hovering over the phone for a solid minute before it rang. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” he asked shakily before Gracia could say a word.

She cried harder.

**_5._ **

He called Maes.

Maes still went to work.

Gracia still called.

This time, he listened as she sobbed out a story about a phone booth and a gun. “They stabbed him. His shoulder... “ She pulled in a trembling breath, voice frantic in the way it got when she couldn’t wrap her head around things. She’d been like this when Maes got hurt on a case years ago, too. “He got hurt at Command. They said he…”

“He called me,” he admitted. “No one was there by the time the call got patched through. I was waiting for him to call me back.”

“They shot him,” she cried. “What  _ happened _ , Roy? What happened?!”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, voice strained. “I don’t know.”

**_11._ **

“Something’s wrong,” he told Riza when he called her that morning. His hands were shaking. “I’m heading down to Central.”

“Sir? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, eyes on the clock. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

He caught the first train to Central he could, one leg bouncing in a nervous rhythm the entire ride. One hour. Two. Three. By the fourth, he was ready to pull on his gloves and order them to quit making stops in between. By the fifth, the gloves were on his hands and he was trying to breathe through the panic attack that wanted to rise up in him.

“It’s fine,” he muttered to himself when a woman gave his gloved hands a nervous look and he had to make himself pull them off. “It’s fine.”

He got to Central just after noon and hurried to Central Command. No one stopped him as he hurried through the halls, barely muttering an apology to the civilian woman he knocked into as he rounded the corner. Not one of his aunt’s girls, he thought absently. A dress like that was fine for the bar, but his sisters weren’t so blatant about it when they were working in more official areas.

He found Maes in his office with most of his team missing, save for a young girl with glasses who was bent over a stack of books bigger than her.

“Roy?” Maes stared at him, confused, and pushed his glasses down his nose so he could stare at him without prescription lenses. As if that would give him a clearer picture. They both knew Maes couldn’t see six inches in front of him without his glasses. “Aren’t you supposed to be in East City?”

“ _ Gēn wǒ lái _ ,” he told him, “now.”

Maes grimaced and Roy knew it was because it wasn’t one of their normal phrases. Back during Ishval, they’d used it when things got urgent, but not now. It had been years and despite his grandmother’s and Roy’s best efforts, Maes’ Xingese would only ever be subpar at best. Still, Maes rose to his feet and followed him, guiding him through the hall and to the empty archive room.

“What’s wrong with you?” Maes asked almost as soon as the door shut. “Your transfer isn’t final until, what? Next week?”

“Are the Elrics here?”

Maes blinked at him, surprised. “They left this morning.”

He was going to throw up. “Are you looking into something for them?”

Maes grabbed his arm and dragged him deeper into the stacks. “Who told you that?” he hissed.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he mumbled. “What are you researching?”

“We can’t talk about it here-”

“Then, leave. Grab the girls and leave.”

“Roy, what’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong,” he said, thinking about when he said it to Riza that morning. “I need you to trust me.”

“You know I do,” Maes said, soft, “but you’re scaring me. This isn’t like you.”

It was a lie. Frantic. Nervous. Half out of his head. He’d spent the first three months after Ishval on a hair-trigger while he survived on coffee and nightmares. Maes had spent weeks on his couch, just to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

“ _ Qǐng _ ,” he pleaded. “ _ Wǒ bùnéng zài zhèyàng zuòle _ .”

“Amestrian, Roy,” his friend reminded him, brows furrowed in worry. “You know my Xingese isn’t that good.”

“I can’t do this again,” he repeated. “Something’s happening, Maes. It’s been Tuesday for two weeks. It keeps  _ repeating _ .” He stepped out of Maes’ reach when the man raised a hand towards his forehead. “I’m not sick,” he snapped. “Do you know how many nights in a row I’ve had Gracia call me and tell me you’re dead? I go to work, you call me, you’re not on the other end when the call comes through, and two hours later, Gracia is calling me. Then, it all happens again the next morning, because it’s fucking Tuesday again.

“I’ve tried not going to work. I’ve tried not answering my phone. I’ve tried telling the dispatcher to put you right through when you call and not to bother with the code, but even  _ that _ didn’t work. All you told me was something about a transmutation circle and, then, someone  _ shot you _ .”

Maes stared at him for seconds too long and,  _ shit _ , Roy knew how insane he sounded. He still wasn’t sure that he wasn’t in the middle of a psychotic break – if he was, he was sure he could blame Fullmetal for it – but days on days of hearing Gracia sobbing over the phone line and he just...couldn’t. He couldn’t keep doing this.

“Okay,” Maes said finally. He was still frowning at Roy like he thought he’d lost his mind, but he nodded. “Just let me get a couple things from my office and we’ll go.”

Roy let his shoulders relax. Good. This was good. If he just got Maes out of here, maybe-

He heard the footsteps a second too late.  _ Something _ pierced through Maes’ chest and he had a moment to register the shock on his friend’s face before they stabbed into his chest too.

**_12._ **

He woke up in his bed.

Everything went the same.

**_15._ **

“It’s  _ changing _ ,” he told Maes as they rushed through the halls and Maes held a hand to his bleeding shoulder. “The whole day used to play out, but ever since I came down here, it keeps resetting when you die. There’s no time in between-”

A woman’s low laugh cut him off.

This time, her nails went straight through Maes’ skull.

**_26._ **

Wake up at 5:12am.

Get to the train by 6:53am.

Pull into Central at 12:05pm.

Find Maes in his office at 12:49pm.

It deviated from there. To the archive room to try and make Maes understand while he tried to keep him out of reach of that woman’s claws. The woman with the dress – the one he’d thought was a working girl with no sense of discretion. Alchemy didn’t make nails extend into  _ that _ . Whatever she was, she wasn’t human.

They made it out of the archive room that time, both of them bleeding, and he pulled his gloves on with his teeth so his blood wouldn’t disrupt the array. Snapped.

“Her tattoo,” Maes panted as they rounded a corner and he started to let himself think they were safe. “The one of her chest. It’s an Ouroboros tattoo. I was trying to look into it for the Elrics. The people with the tattoo have something to do with the Fifth Laboratory.”

Fifth Laboratory. He had to remember that. Maes mentioning the tattoo wasn’t new. It had happened a handful of times already.

“The brothers found out how you make a Philosopher’s stone,” Maes added. “They-”

A gunshot.

Blood splattered across Roy’s face as Maes dropped and he saw Maria Ross – not her, he realized, her mole was missing – in the moment before the gun turned on him.

**_40._ **

“Don’t go to the office today,” he said when Maes answered the phone, yawning. “Whatever you’re looking into for the Elrics, don’t. Not today. Not until I get down there.”

“Roy?”

“Promise me, Maes,” he pressed and, fuck, he should already be on his way to the train station. This was going to put him behind schedule, but nothing he’d done so far had  _ worked _ . If that woman didn’t get them, the shapeshifter always did. Maybe getting down there earlier wasn’t as important as intervening before Maes had even left for work.

“How did you know-”

“We don’t have  _ time _ ,” he insisted. “I need you to promise me you won’t go in. I’ll be in Central by mid-afternoon if I catch the second train. Don’t do anything until I get there.”

It didn’t matter. Halfway to Central, everything reset again.

**_49._ **

He missed the first train and, then, the second as he tried to explain everything to Maes over the phone. Everything that had happened so far. Every loop. Every failure. Every little piece of information he’d gathered so far.

Maes asked him four times if he’d been drinking, but he could hear how unnerved his friend sounded. How scared.

“Gracia and Elicia,” Maes said, concerned, “I need to get them out of here, right?”

“They haven’t gotten involved at all,” Roy said as his head thumped back against the wall. He should have been in the office hours ago and he hadn’t bothered to call Riza to say he wouldn’t be in that morning. If she stayed on-track with the other times he didn’t show up to work, she’d be there by noon. He still hadn’t decided what he’d do when she did.

If it even mattered.

“And this whole thing,” Maes went on. “When I die-”

“It resets. I wake up here.” He let out a slow breath that only trembled a little. “I don’t know why it’s happening, but it’s your death that keeps triggering it. Whatever you were looking into, Maes. I need to know.”

“These lines aren’t secure,” he started to argue, but sighed. “Though, I guess if I die, you just have to do it all again tomorrow. The lines don’t really matter, do they?”

They did. They mattered, because them being overheard meant Maes dying  _ again _ , but it was information he needed. He didn’t  _ think _ anyone else was aware of the loops – hadn’t noticed anyone else who seemed aware and fuck knew he’d been looking – but if Maes’ death was what kept resetting it, reason said making him survive the day would be what ended it.

He hoped.

Prayed.

He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t save him after all this.

(It was a lie. He knew and he knew how sick Maes would be if he knew Roy was already conjuring up memories of human transmutation circles.)

Maes sighed, as if his silence had been his answer. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he admitted, because he couldn’t even find it in him to get off his floor. Sometime around his ranting about the third or fourth loop, Gracia had stepped out with Elicia and the Rockbell girl to see the Elrics off at the train station. From what he could tell, they hadn’t come back yet.

“Roy…”

“Don’t. Just,” he paused, swallowing, “just tell me what you know. The last time, you started telling me you’d been looking at maps, something about a transmutation circle.”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Maes reminded him gently.

“I know,” he sighed, “but whatever you remember from the Elrics.”

“We still don’t know much. I’m honestly not sure if they told us everything they know. We...got interrupted.”

Roy’s back straightened. “By who?”

“Bradley. He came into Ed’s room yesterday,” he explained. “We were talking about looking into things and he came in. He knows there’s something going on in the military-”

“Like?”

“Undetermined. He called it suspicious activity, but considering the kind of things the Elrics saw at the Laboratory…”

He forced himself to his feet and over to his desk. Notes wouldn’t do him any good when things reset, but he could use them to organize his thoughts today and memorize what he could. “Tell me everything,” he ordered as he reached for his pen.

“There were two people. Ed said they were a woman and a kid-”

“I’ve seen the woman,” he cut in, tense. “Her nails extend. Fullmetal tell you what the kid look like?”

“He had a drawing. Long hair and some kind of headband across his forehead, I think. You know him too?”

Roy hummed, eyes closed as he tried to think. “He’s the one who usually… He’s a shapeshifter.”

“...What?”

“There were a couple times we saw him before he took someone’s shape. Maria Ross. Armstrong one time. He…” Roy bit his lip. “He’s shifted into Gracia a couple times. Used you hesitating to finish the job.”

“Of course I’d hesitate. She’s my  _ wife _ .”

“And hesitating got you killed,” he snapped and marked another note on his papers. “The woman had one of those tattoos on her chest. The other one… I think it was on his leg.”

“Definitely part of the same group, then,” his friend mused. “Not surprising.”

“No,” he agreed.

“It’s too bad the Elrics are already gone. They should know about this.”

“We’ll tell them later,” he assured him. “Keep going.”

By the time they finished, he had six pages of notes. It was messy, notes squeezed in between half-drawn circles and charts.  _ Woman _ and  _ Kid _ connected with one line and  _ Bradley _ somewhere under them with a big question mark next to it. It was outrageous, he thought, but Maes had said the Fuhrer had seen their notes and that he’d known they were looking into the Stone. It could just be because the Stone used in Ishval, but if those other two had been at the Laboratory…

He couldn’t rule it out.

“I think I can hear you getting a headache,” Maes teased, but it sounded half-hearted.

“What I need is for you to stay away from the office until I get there.” He stared down at his notes about the Stone’s creation and scribbled them out until the words weren’t legible. For safety, he told himself and pretended it wasn’t the nausea churning his stomach. He wouldn’t forget  _ that _ .

“Roy, there’s no way you’ll make it in time tonight,” Maes told him, tone too serious, and Roy went still.

“Maes, no-”

“You’re the one who keeps saying this resets. Whatever this is, it’s focused on me. No one is looking at you yet and, even if they were, they wouldn’t get to East City in time to do anything tonight,” he went on as if Roy hadn’t spoken. “Travelling is just going to take up time you could be using to study your notes. Remember what you can and you can make a plan for tomorrow.”

“It’s  _ never _ tomorrow,” he argued weakly. His chest hurt.

“I guess not,” Maes said softly, “but you may need to lose some days to research.”

“We don’t know if this is going to wear off-”

“Call me in the morning,” Maes told him. “Tell me what you can, but just...have me go with Armstrong instead. Maybe if I look into Marcoh’s team with him, it will help. At least I’ll be with someone else while we search and I won’t be alone until you get here.”

He didn’t like the thought of bringing more people in any more than he thought Maes did. Whether or not the day reset, it ran the risk of someone else dying and the loop ending. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but he knew Maes didn’t suggest it lightly. He knew what he was saying.

“I’ll lay low tonight, but I’m not going to stay at the apartment. I don’t want to risk the girls coming home and getting tied up in it,” Maes told him. “I’m going to head to the library. I have an idea.”

“Then, tell  _ me _ what it is and I’ll look into it. It’s not going to do us any good if you don’t remember it later.”

Maes was quiet for a long moment, but he could hear the sound of him moving around like he was checking that they were secure. “All of this,” he finally said, “everything we’ve been talking about. It’s a lot of death, Roy. Ishval. Everything that’s happening in Liore-”

“Liore?”

“Look at the papers. There are conflicts everywhere. We’re always at war with someone. There’s  _ always _ bloodshed.” Maes let out a frustrated breath. “We need a map. I’ve got a bad feeling it all connects.”

“To what?” he asked, dread growing in his gut. Every conflict. The wars. Every time loop when Maes tried to tell him about a transmutation circle. “The Stone. You’re thinking-”

“I really hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not? Roy, if that’s what I kept figuring out every other time…”

“I’ll get a map,” he promised, “but lay low. I need you to-”

“Hold on. Gracia’s home,” Maes told him and put the phone down. “Did you drop Elicia off somewhere?” he asked her, voice far away, and Roy’s stomach dropped.

He didn’t hear the response, but he heard the shot.

**_50._ **

He had Maes go with Armstrong.

By the time he tracked them down, Armstrong was dead on the ground.

He didn’t have time to snap his fingers before the thing with Gracia’s face put a bullet between Maes’ eyes.

**_51._ **

He had Maes bring Armstrong with him to research the tattoos.

Same result.

**_66._ **

“ _ Qǐng _ ,” he begged. “Please. Just get the girls and come to East City. They’re already going to the train station today. Just go with them.”

“How did you know they’re-”

“Maes, please. I need you three up here today. I’ll explain when you get here,” he pressed. He couldn’t keep  _ doing this _ . It was too much. He’d failed Maes before, but failing him over and over again like this… He was going to lose his mind, he thought. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to sleep without thinking about Maes dead at his feet.

His fault. His fault. His fault.

He was never fast enough. Why was he never fast enough?

He realized slowly he’d started begging in Xingese, too fast and too unfamiliar for his friend to follow, but Maes was on the other end trying to calm him down. To soothe him.

“Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll get the tickets and head out after we see the Elrics off, okay?”

His shoulders relaxed minutely, but he knew he wouldn’t be settled until this was  _ over _ .

Three hours later, he was signing a form Riza had handed him when he saw everything fade out and  _ knew _ they hadn’t made it.

**_70._ **

He slammed into the ground, head rebounding off the concrete, and everything went white for a second. If it hadn’t been for the continued sounds of shuffling, he’d think everything had reset again, but he heard Maes call out his name, worried.

He pushed himself up and two Maeses stared back at him. Both bleeding from the shoulder. Both holding a throwing knife in their hand. If it weren’t for the fact that they were holding the knives in different hands, he’d think he had a concussion.

Thought he still might, actually, if the pounding in his head had anything to say about it.

They were both shouting at him and he just… He couldn’t focus. One of them was wrong. One of them had to be…

He looked at the one on the left and snapped.

Fear. Horror.

Roy felt something in his chest crack open as the one on the right started cackling and the wrong one burned.

  
  


**_71._ **

He vomited when he woke up that morning, horror still fresh, and  _ ohgodwhatdidhedo _ running through his head. He killed him. It wasn’t those monsters that killed him that time, it had been  _ Roy _ .

He couldn’t save him and, now, he’d killed him.

He inhaled and gagged again at the phantom scent of burning flesh. Thought about the betrayal on Maes’ face before the flames had overtaken him and wanted to  _ die _ .

He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t…

Everything felt numb when he got to his feet, face tear-streaked. Done. He was done. He couldn’t fail Maes  _ and _ be his killer.

The weight of the gun’s barrel in his mouth was a familiar feeling. So many nights after Ishval, he’d woken up sick and screaming, but every time he ended up on the edge of his bed with the gun, he hadn’t been able to pull the trigger.

This time, he did.

**_72._ **

He woke up.

The hysterical laughter came seconds later, because of  _ course _ it hadn’t worked. Of course the one time he had the guts and needed it to  _ stop _ , it hadn’t worked. He woke up and it was  _ still _ Tuesday.

He wondered if this was what it felt like to lose your mind.

He didn’t drag himself out of bed for a long time, unsure if there was even a point to it. The woman killed Maes. The shapeshifter killed Maes.  _ He _ killed Maes. He was starting to think there wasn’t a solution at all.

Time went by and he knew Riza would come by at noon when he didn’t show up at the office. He forced himself up at eleven, idly wondering when things had reset the last time. If his body had laid out on the floor until Maes died that night.

If Riza had found him.

  
  


He called the office, exhaustion and defeat wearing him down as he told Havoc to let the rest of the team know he wouldn’t be in. “I’ve got some business to take care of in Central.”

“Got it, boss,” Havoc said, voice distorted just enough that he thought the man had a cigarette in his mouth. “I’ll let ‘em know.”

Maes called him all of thirty minutes later as he was contemplating a shot of something harder than coffee before he left for the train.

“What’s this I hear about you having business in Central the day  _ after _ my Elicia’s birthday?” Maes accused when he answered the phone. He nearly hung up so he could vomit again. “Your lovely adjunct just called to see if I knew what you had to do this way.”

He could practically hear the eyebrow waggle that Maes gave the phone, but he didn’t have the energy to remind the man that he and Riza weren’t like that for the thousandth time.

“There’s just some stuff I need to do,” he said, because he couldn’t have the whole conversation with Maes again – not yet. When he saw him, he decided. He’d tell him when he saw him.

“Are you okay? You sound off.”

No. “Yeah. I just didn’t sleep well.”

“Well, take a nap on the train. Just don’t miss your stop!”

“I know. I’ll see you tonight.”

“I’ll tell Gracia to make her quiche.”

  
  


The sun was starting to set by the time he got to Central, streetlights flickering on by the time he walked into Central Command. He hadn’t actually managed to sleep on the train, too scared of the nightmares waiting for him. He hadn’t been able to stomach any food either, he realized as he trudged through the halls and thinking about the quiche Gracia probably had waiting for him. Not that they’d get that far, he figured. He’d find Maes in his office or in the archive room and everything would just go to hell again.

The girl with the glasses was the only one in the office when he let himself in. “Is Hughes in the archive room?”

She lifted her head from the book she’d been using as a pillow, blinking blearily at him for a moment before she seemed to realize who he was. She sprang to her feet. “Sorry! I… No,” she said and hurriedly added, “sir. He got a couple things from there and decided to head home.”

He nodded once and left, dread heavy in his stomach and forcing him to move faster. Faster.  _ Faster _ . It was fine, he told himself. Maybe they didn’t follow him. Maybe he got in and out of the archive room fast enough that they thought nothing of it.

Halfway up the stairs, he knew he was wrong. He could hear the scuffling and Maes shouting. He shooed their neighbor back into her apartment from where she’d been lingering in her doorway and pulled his gloves on.

It was just the woman this time. The shapeshifter wasn’t there.

Blood on the floor.

Bodies.

Gracia.

Elicia.

Maes was bleeding, but he was on his feet, enraged and half out of his head as he tried to take the woman down.

Roy couldn’t take his eyes off the girls. Off their bodies. Gracia’s arm stretched out like she’d been reaching for her daughter.

He snapped.

The woman went up in flames.

Snapped.

Snapped.

Snapped.

Snapped.

She fell and she didn’t get up. The shapeshifter didn’t appear.

Maes stared down at her body like he was still in shock before he raised his eyes to him. “I…” He swallowed, eyes far away for a moment. “Gracia made you her quiche…”

Roy’s heart broke. If he’d been faster. If he hadn’t let himself lay in his bed so long and  _ wallow _ . He’d never forget the image of Maes before his flames killed him and, now, he’d never forget Gracia and Elicia lying dead on the floor.

“There’s someone else, Maes,” he told him apologetically. “A shapeshifter. There’s this… It’s a long story. Whatever you’re looking into for the Elrics, that woman and the other one keep coming after you. They keep killing you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Time keeps resetting. I think I’m the only one who knows. If I interfere, the script changes, but they never seem to know about what’s already happened.” He knelt down, took off his glove, and held two fingers to the pulse point on Elicia’s neck just to be  _ sure _ . He closed his eyes when he didn’t feel a pulse and heard Maes let out a wounded noise.

“This has happened before?”

“Not  _ this _ ,” he curled his hands into fists so he didn’t gesture at Maes’ girls, “but you dying…” He swallowed thickly. “You die and it resets. I think if we get you to midnight, it should stop, but it’s just a theory right now.”

“I decided to bring some of my research home,” Maes said hollowly as he stared at the bodies of his wife and daughter. “I was supposed to read Elicia a story tonight and I didn’t want to be late.”

“Maes…” He stepped towards him, but his friend held up a hand to stop him.

“You said it’s a time loop, right? It resets when I die?” he asked, voice breaking. Roy had barely nodded when Maes jerked his gun out of its holster and stuck it under his chin.

Roy closed his eyes before the shot went off.

**_73._ **

Desperate, he called Maes the moment he woke up. “Put the Rockbell girl on the phone,” he demanded when Maes answered.

“Winry? How’d you know-”

“Maes,  _ now _ ,” he snapped, foot tapping a nervous rhythm as he heard the shuffle of the phone being put down and Maes heading off towards the guest room. Not again. He couldn’t let this keep happening. Seeing Armstrong die had hurt. Seeing Maes die had threatened to tear him to pieces. But Gracia and Elicia… He couldn’t let that keep happening. Even if the days got erased, he couldn’t let them get hurt like that again.

“Colonel Mustang?” Winry asked, confused. She, at least, didn’t sound half asleep.

“Tell Fullmetal he’s not leaving Central. As of now, he’s on protection detail for Hughes until I get to Central,” he told her and spared a moment to feel bad for being so harsh with the girl. She wasn’t one of his soldiers, but he didn’t have the time to try and deal with hospital phone lines. If Fullmetal listened to anyone, it would be her. “I’ll be there by this afternoon. Tell him it’s life or death. Those people from the Fifth Laboratory are after Maes.” He should have called him Hughes. He usually did unless it was just them, but his name slipped out at the same time his tone dipped from authoritative to a little desperate. “I know Fullmetal’s still injured, but he needs to stay. Tell him… Tell him I know what they’re planning.”

He did. He knew and the thought still sickened him, because he’d spent too much time staring at a map with his pen in hand. Maes had been right. It was all one big transmutation circle and they were right in the middle of it. He’d hoped to avoid pulling the Elrics into this, more out of a desire to protect them from Armstrong’s fate in the loops than anything practical, but Maes had said a long time ago that he wasn’t sure the brothers had told them everything. He needed to know. He had to compile all the information he had with what they did and figure out what those things were trying so hard to hide.

“Yes, sir,” she said softly, a little concerned and more than a little scared. “I’ll tell him.”

“I’ll buy you all new tickets to wherever you’re going after this is done,” he told her, “but this trip of yours has to wait.”

“I understand,” she said, suddenly sounding a little firmer, and he remembered her parents. Brave. Loyal. Bullheaded. No wonder she could put up with Fullmetal.

There was another shuffle as the phone got handed over. “Roy? What’s going on?”

“Just get to the hospital and stay there. I’ll explain when I get to you.”

  
  


Suspicious looks met him when he walked into the hospital room and he pulled his original watch from his pocket. “Heathcliff,” he told Maes when his friend’s eyes locked on the broken watch with the bullet hole.

Maes nodded at him sharply. “What’s going on?”

He told them about the loops. About the circle. He laid out the map he’d brought with him and watched Ed and Maes go pale.

Fullmetal put a hole in the wall with his metal fist.

Alphonse went very quiet.

Maes collapsed back into an empty chair. “You think they’re watching us?” he asked when Roy snapped and burned the map away.

“ _ Shì _ ,” he said with a sharp nod so that the brothers would still understand. Then, silently, he tapped the spot under his left eye. Maes sucked in a breath. The brothers took another second to understand, but when they did, Fullmetal started swearing. He raised a hand to silence him. “I think this will stop if we can just get past midnight.” They might still go after Maes, but it would be without a loop and with more time to prepare themselves.

Fullmetal met his eyes, serious. “You’ve done this before. What’s your plan?”

  
  


The plan didn’t work. He hadn’t been expecting the woman and the shapeshifter to show up at the hospital.

The shapeshifter went for the brothers while he and Maes tried to handle the woman, but she wouldn’t  _ die _ and there was only so much firepower Roy could use without putting the whole hospital at risk. Too much pure oxygen. Too many chances for a flame to get out of even his control.

Maes’ knife went into her forehead and she pulled it right back out.

The brothers went through the window with the shapeshifter as they took their fight outside. The woman hadn’t seemed happy about it, seemed like she wanted to keep things more underwraps, but the shapeshifter was angry.

Little with long hair shifted into Winry Rockbell and that made  _ Ed _ angry.

Things got out of control. Years of combat situations and he was usually good at keeping track of what was happening around him, but whatever the brothers did, the shapeshifter got  _ angry _ . Out of control.

He heard the clatter of armor fall before he heard Ed screaming his brother’s name, horrified. Mourning.

Maes went still, staring wide-eyed at the empty armor and the place where Al’s blood seal had been.

“You idiot!” the woman shouted at the shapeshifter. “Do you know what you’ve done?! You were supposed to keep them alive!”

The shapeshifter wasn’t listening. It kept going at Ed like it was going for the kill. They tried to help, but the woman wouldn’t fall and, now,  _ she _ was angry.

He didn’t see Ed fall – couldn’t bring himself to look at the broken form of the  _ kid _ he’d recruited – but he heard the woman’s outraged scream.

He was too slow to stop her from lashing out and sending her claws through Maes.

**_74._ **

“I need you to do me a favor,” he told Gracia when he called, phone pressed to his ear while he watched the clock. Talk to her. Talk to Maes. Get to the train station. Be in Central by the afternoon. He’d nearly decided to make the call from the train station, but there were too many risks of being overheard and he’d needed to make sure he waited until Gracia and Elicia had gotten back from seeing the Elrics off.

He wasn’t involving the brothers again. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to look at them again without thinking about them lying dead on the ground because of him.

He’d brought  _ children  _ into the military. What the hell had he been thinking?

“Roy? Is something wrong?”

“Call Maes and tell him you need him to come home. Have him tell his team he’s going to the archive room and, then, tell him to get out of there,” he told her and wished he wasn’t pulling them into this too. “Keep him at home, Gracia.”

“Roy-”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” she told him, voice soft. She sounded worried.

“Then, call Maes. I’ll come by the apartment tonight.”

She made him promise to explain that night in the same breath she used to say she’d make her quiche. He tried not to throw up, thinking about the last time she’d tried to make it for him.

  
  


“I’m home,” Maes said when Roy picked up the phone. Good. He’d called just like he’d asked Gracia to have him do. “Is there a reason you’re scaring my wife?”

“ _ Shì _ .”

“ _ Hǎo _ ,” Maes agreed and Roy  _ knew _ his friend was looking at his wife. Concern. Fear. “Code?”

He loved Maes, really, he did. For every moment when his friend was an eccentric lunatic, he knew when to get serious. He knew when their Xingese was panic-induced and when it was deliberate. He knew when to get  _ serious _ . “Our old friend,” he said, free hand patting the pocket that held the broken watch.

“Understood.”

  
  


He was the only one in the archive room when he slipped in, but he pulled out the maps he knew Maes had found in old loops. He circled the towns and drew out the circle. He set the stage and, then, he slipped into the stacks and waited.

It was over an hour before he heard the click of the door shutting and the  _ clack _ of heels against the floor. The click of a tongue that Roy wasn’t sure meant she was impressed or disappointed at what they knew.

He gave his gloves a final tug and snapped before he’d fully rounded the corner. 

She spun, body already alight, and her nails pierced through his shoulder. She’d barely retracted them, ready to strike again, when he snapped his fingers a second time. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Five took her down in the Hugheses’ apartment before and he snapped one more for good measure, heedless of her screams and her struggles to get at him – to understand what was happening and who was attacking her.

She fell and didn’t get up as the room burned. It had been a dangerous place to do it, but he’d relied on the element of surprise and setting the trap. Some files could stand to be lost.

He dropped the map onto the lingering fire eating away at her body and went for the door, only pausing long enough to draw a circle on the wall that would draw the excess oxygen from the room.

One down, he thought grimly as he made his way back through the halls. One more to go.

  
  


“Please put the phone down, sir,” Riza’s voice said behind him and he wanted to laugh. He’d almost expected the shapeshifter to be Maria Ross, but the thought had probably been misguided. He’d only known the 2nd Lieutenant in passing before the loops started and, still, the bulk of his interactions with her had been with her imposter.

He turned to face the shapeshifter slowly and, idly, he wondered how long they’d been watching his team if this thing knew to try and impersonate his 1st Lieutenant.

“It’s funny,” he said as he heard Riza question him on the other end of the line, “because my adjunct is many things, but even she hasn’t mastered the ability of being in two places at once.”

The thing’s eyes widened and he  _ knew _ it had thought he was calling Maes. He’d spoken to Riza before he’d left Central that morning, tense, as he’d instructed her to make sure she was home to answer his call that night. They wouldn’t have the time to deal with dispatchers and security codes.

_ His _ Riza, at least, had known him well enough not to question when he called her Hughes.

The shapeshifter let its surprise fade away and cocked the gun. “It doesn’t matter,” it told him, “you’re unarmed.”

“I am,” he agreed as he lifted the ungloved hand that had been holding the phone. Dark eyes followed the movement and he knew he had to act fast. He was already bleeding from his shoulder with a wound that reminded him too much of the one Maes had gotten too many times before. If he hadn’t been worried about burns and the possibility of scars restricting his mobility after, he’d have cauterized it before he ever left the archive room.

He wondered if he’d die here the way they had in the past. Killing himself before hadn’t stopped the loops, but if he managed to take this thing out with him… Hell, he could die here for all he cared, but if Maes survived the night and the loop ended, he’d be happy.

Fullmetal probably would have gone for a last witty one-liner – something about only being partially unarmed – but he just pulled his right hand from his pocket and snapped. Left for power, he thought as he watched Riza’s double go up in flames. He’d have preferred to use his left first and use the precision to knock the gun from the shapeshifter’s hand, but just like in the archive room, he didn’t have  _ time _ for precision.

He snapped again. Again. Again. He snapped until the thing fell and didn’t move.

He stood there after, staring at the burned husk in front of him, bewildered, because the thing hadn’t shot him. It hadn’t had time to. Shock had caught it too quickly and he was still standing. There was blood dripping down his arm and he was pretty sure he’d be lightheaded by the time he finally made it to the Hugheses’, but he was standing and Maes’ killers weren’t.

He let out a laugh that sounded a little hysterical and reached for the phone with his bloody hand, gloved one still poised to snap if that thing so much as  _ twitched _ . “Everything’s fine,” he told Riza, cutting off her worried orders to  _ answer me, Roy _ . “We’ll need a cleanup crew dispatched to my location, though. Enemy combatant is down and there’s some blood to clean up.”

“Blood?”

“Minor injury,” he hedged. “I’ll patch it up myself. Oh, and send a crew to the archive room in Central Command, too. I eliminated the excess oxygen in there, but there’s another combatant.”

“Dead?”

“Very.”

“Yes, sir.” She hung up without another word, but he was sure he’d get an earful of it later, assuming things didn’t reset again. He grimaced at the thought and at the way his wound pulled.

Time to get to Maes.

  
  


He’d barely knocked when Maes threw the door open and pulled him inside with a hard tug on his bad arm. He choked back the noise that wanted to come out, but Maes noticed the blood on his hand a second later and swore. “Later,” he said before Maes could start in on him and pulled out the broken watch to show Maes. “Heathcliff. Help me wrap this.”

“Clear?”

“As far as I can tell,” he said, but he still reached out with his good arm to flip the lock. “They’re the only ones I’ve seen.”

Maes nodded and he worked silently while he bandaged the wounds, but Roy didn’t miss the looks he kept shooting Gracia as she lingered worriedly at the opening of the hall. Elicia must be in her room, he thought. None of them would want her to see this.

He let Maes help him into a new shirt after, jaw tight at the pain, but he pushed his friend away before the man could try to button it for him. He could manage that much on his own.

“Roy, what happened?” Gracia asked before Maes could. She must have been terrified all day, he thought guiltily.

He told them everything, but somewhere around explaining the time he killed Maes by mistake, his breathing got quick and he slid into Xingese. His head was spinning by the time Maes talked him back down.

He couldn’t look Maes in the eye when he told him about Gracia and Elicia. Didn’t tell him at all about the time he’d eaten his own gun.

“The Elrics won’t be in Rush Valley for days,” Maes said, mostly to himself. “We won’t be able to tell them anything until they’re back in Central.”

“Could you pass a message along to their teacher?” Gracia asked, still standing by the hallway like a careful protector in case Elicia came searching. “She could tell them to come back after they leave there. Winry talked about her a bit – Izumi Curtis. She and her husband are butchers in Dublith.”

He could have kissed her, he thought tiredly, if he’d had the energy to get up.

“You need to get some rest,” Maes told him.

The panic in him flared. “ _ No _ .”

“Roy-”

“This is the furthest I’ve  _ gotten _ , Maes. I can’t… If someone else shows up…” If  _ Bradley _ shows up. “I can’t.”

“You’re not much use to anyone right now,” Maes pointed out, but he sighed and put a grounding hand on the back of Roy’s neck. “Roy-”

“ _ No _ .”

His friend looked towards his wife and she nodded before she slipped down the hall towards their daughter’s room. “Is this just in case someone shows up?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to wake up in my apartment again,” he choked out, hating himself for the weakness. “If I can get through today…”

“Then, we will,” Maes told him. “I’ll start some coffee and we’ll have dinner. Then, you and I will stay up as long as you want to, okay?”

“You should think I’m crazy.”

“I thought you were crazy when you were thinking about human transmutation,” Maes said simply. “Right now, I just think you’re scared.”

  
  


He fell asleep sometime after midnight, head pillowed on Maes’ shoulder, while Maes went on about Elicia’s birthday party.

  
  


He woke with a start the next morning when his shoulder started throbbing and Maes started snoring in his ear. Sunlight slipped in between the opening on the curtain, birds chirping outside, and he saw Elicia sitting on the floor with her dolls.

She raised a finger to her lips and made her doll do the same.

Gracia walked around her, smiling. “Sleep,” she told him, but he was already drifting off again. “We’ll keep an eye out.”

**_Epilogue._ **

In the end, it hadn’t mattered much. They’d passed on the information Roy had gathered during the loops – and carefully didn’t explain  _ how _ he’d pieced everything together, because after explaining it to Riza, he’d refused to do it again – and it had helped to an extent. They’d had some questions answered that pushed them towards others, but the Promised Day still came.

People still died.

Roy sent Maes off with his team to handle Mrs. Bradley to keep him away from the rest.

He went after Envy  _ again _ the same way he’d had to go after Lust again when he realized that he hadn’t killed them. Scared them, he thought, and he wondered if they’d been ordered off of him and Maes as a result.

Fullmetal and Scar tried to talk him down as he snapped and burned the shapeshifter to nothing. It didn’t work. Riza stood behind him, stone-faced, the entire time, because she knew. She understood. She’d made him tell her everything after cleanup crews found ashes and blood, but no bodies.

He burned Envy with a calm that made Fullmetal look scared in the flickering light.

Part of him wondered how differently things would have gone if they hadn’t been as prepared. If Riza’s throat still would have been cut. If he’d had to stare at that image in front of him and know the only thing keeping him from using human transmutation was her telling him not to.

Days later, as his hands ached where he’d been stabbed and he blinked in the darkness of a well-lit room, he had a feeling he would have ended up in the same spot either way.

He turned his head minutely when he heard the door click open, as if he could still see the person filling the space, but the familiar  _ thud-clunk _ of Fullmetal’s mismatched gait told him who it was. There was a second set with him, though, and he didn’t think it could be Al. As far as he was aware, the other teenager was still bed-bound in his own hospital room as the doctors tried to make sure he was stable. Maes’ description of how thin the boy was hadn’t been especially promising.

“Hey, Bastard,” Fullmetal greeted, because at least one thing hadn’t changed, “you know who Ling’s gotta talk to so he can get back to Xing?”

“If he had  _ papers _ ,” Roy muttered, “you wouldn’t have this issue.”

“Is that a yes?”

Roy sighed. “Talk to Vick in Immigration. Remind him he owes me a favor.”

“What’s that?” another voice asked. Ling Yao, he thought, it had to be. He could hear the soft lilt of a Xingese accent, same as the one he’d had when Aunt Chris had first brought him to live with her.

““What? This? Roy gave it to me years ago,” Maes said from where he was lounging between the two beds. He’d been there all morning. Before he could ask Maes what he was even talking about, though, Maes seemed to realize and added, “The protection charm.”

“You still have that?” he asked, surprised. He remembered what it looked like – the smooth oval of black tourmaline and carefully carved Xingese characters laid out long-ways on the stone. Someone had filled the carving with gold years ago. As a child, he used to trace it, awed by the warmth that seemed to radiate from the stone and the tingle he’d feel in the tips of his fingers.

“Kept it in my pocket since you gave it to me,” Maes said.

“ _ You _ gave it to him?” Ling said, suddenly closer than he was before. Roy barely resisted the urge to jump, but he heard Maes stand and felt his friend’s hand go to his shoulder.

“In Ishval,” Maes explained for him. “I got shot.” Roy’s jaw clenched at the memory and Maes’ hand on his shoulder gripped tighter over the old scars Lust had left behind.

“And where did  _ you _ get it?” Ling asked him, bewildered.

“My mother gave it to me,” he replied, shrugging the shoulder Maes’ hand wasn’t on. “It was some old charm they’d been passing down through the family.” His mother had given it to him before the sickness swept through Xing and took her and his father. By all rights, the stone was supposed to go from parent to child, but he’d never seen himself settling down. Passing it along to Maes in that warzone had felt like the right thing to do when he’d been surviving off panic and no sleep.

“Your mother,” Ling repeated. “She wasn’t a Li, was she?”

“You knew Mustang’s mom?” Fullmetal asked when Roy nodded.

“Of her,” Ling clarified. “The Li family served the Choi clan for generations. Diplomats. Alkahestrists. Martial artists. Every clan has their niche. The Chois lean on metaphysics.”

“Okay,” Fullmetal said slowly.

“They were advisors,” Roy said simply rather than explain how people had thought his mother was a touch clairvoyant.

Ling hummed in agreement. “The prince or princess of the clan would carry a charm like that.  _ Bǎohù _ . It means protection. It was meant to keep them safe from the battles between heirs.”

Maes’ hand tightened a little more and lightened before he tapped two fingers against Roy’s shoulder.  _ Alone _ . “Then, Roy probably should have held onto it,” Maes said with a false sort of lightheartedness. “He’s the one always getting into trouble.”

Riza shifted in the other bed, covers pushed back so she could get to her feet. “I need to check in with the rest of the team. Come with me, boys, and I’ll see if I can track down Colonel Vick for you.”

Sometimes, he was so grateful for Riza, he could kiss her.

If he didn’t think she’d shoot him for it.

The door shut behind them with little more than a  _ see you _ from Fullmetal and Roy felt the bed dip as Maes sat on the edge of it.

“You don’t think…” Maes trailed off. “The time loops?”

“It’s a  _ rock _ .”

“You just went up against a  _ god _ .”

It was a fair point. Roy sighed. “I don’t know,” he said and wasn’t surprised when Maes pressed it into his hand. It felt cool, nothing like the warmth and tingle he’d felt as a child. He handed it back.

“You need it more than I do.”

“I don’t think I do,” he disagreed. “My mom used to say, stones like that, you felt something from them when you needed it. I don’t feel it.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Gods and time loops,” he countered. “Maybe I need to start.”

Maes let out a little chuckle, silent for a long minute. “I’ve been fiddling with it since the night you came to the apartment.”

He supposed he had. Maes had picked up a habit of weaving the stone between his fingers like a magician with a coin, but he hadn’t thought of it much – had figured it was just another odd habit Maes had picked up since the last time he’d seen him on a more regular basis.

“Keep it,” he told Maes. “Give it to Elicia someday.”

“Just in case?”

“Yeah,” he agreed and hoped she’d never need it. “Just in case.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re sensitive to suicide – it’s impermanent, but I know some people don’t like reading it at all – skip loop 71 and the end of 72 (but trust your own judgement with the mood at the start of 72, as well).  
> I’ve used Traditional Chinese as Xingese in this verse and have done my best with some sites and Google Translate, but I’m sure there are errors. If anyone _does_ speak Chinese and wants to offer any corrections, please feel free. I apologize for any errors.  
>  **Translations:**  
>  \- Hǎo - Okay  
> \- Gēn wǒ lái - Come with me  
> \- Qǐng - Please  
> \- Wǒ bùnéng zài zhèyàng zuòle - I can’t do this anymore  
> \- Shì - Yes  
> \- Bǎohù -Protection


End file.
